Same shit, different ship

[DrWilly]

Halloumi is the dog’s bollocks!

[Mendip]

^ Not like you to speak favourably of dog's bollocks?

Yogi will be pleased.


We had a crew change yesterday. This vessel has alongside crew changes every two weeks... no helicopters involved of which I am very glad.

At the start of the shift this crew change marked the half way point of my trip, but by the end of my shift it marked the third way point of my trip. Being the greedy freelancer that I am, yesterday I organised an extra two weeks work which will make this a six week trip until the end of June.

The daughter's new school ain't gonna be cheap!

Anyway... Land ahoy!



They say that Bergen is the rainiest city in Europe, it's even wetter (moister?) than Manchester but with more character. It has an average of 231 wet days per year, although I think this is an underestimation and I must have consistently missed the 134 dry days each year over the past three decades or so. It really is grim.

They also say that April and May are the driest months...



I get a little weary of the heat of Isaan at times, although how the fuk anyone can live here beats me.



It looks like Saturday would be the choice day for outside activities this week, with a balmy 13 degrees predicted.



It was quite a relief to get back to sea.

The Deepsea Aberdeen drilling rig... Dirk, any memories?

[dirk diggler]

Well, yes I do.

I watched the Deepsea Aberdeen sink during sea trials while in construction at DSME Shipyard (Daewoo) in Okpo, South Korea, some time around Christmas 2013.

[DrWilly]

Having spent some time I Dublin (a mere 191 wet days per year) I was going to disagree with your wettest city claim. So I checked AI and discovered that a) it depends how you define wettest (unsurprisingly) but that Tirana, Albania in the Balkans has a claim at all…

.Based on my research, the wettest major European city depends on how you measure "wettest":

**By total annual rainfall:** Podgorica, Montenegro leads with 1,661mm (65.4 inches) of precipitation annually, followed by Ljubljana, Slovenia with 1,368mm (53.9 inches) and Tirana, Albania with 1,219mm (48.0 inches).


**By frequency of rainy days:** Brussels tops the list at 199 days annually when the precipitation amounts to at least one millimetre, though its annual total is a relatively light 852mm.


However, some studies focusing specifically on rainfall patterns identify Bergen, Norway as the rainiest city in Europe, topping the data table for being both the city with the highest average rain days per month (12.7) as well as the highest average daily rainfall (8.8mm).


So the answer varies:
- **Most total precipitation:** Podgorica, Montenegro (1,661mm annually)
- **Most rainy days:** Brussels, Belgium (199 wet days per year)
- **Highest daily rainfall intensity:** Bergen, Norway (8.8mm average daily rainfall)


The discrepancy comes from different measurement criteria and whether you're looking at major cities versus all urban areas in Europe.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

[Mendip]

^ Interesting.

Was it an Albanian website?

[dirk diggler]

Surely Aberdeen makes the top 5.

[DrWilly]

And Yogi’s bollocks can go take a flying jump!

[DrWilly]

Surely Aberdeen makes the top 5.

Aberdeen, Scotland receives about 753-866mm of annual rainfall, which is significantly less than the wettest European cities I mentioned earlier.


Aberdeen gets approximately 184-207 rainy days per year depending on the source, with an annual precipitation of around 753-866mm. October is typically the wettest month with about 96mm of rain, while May is the driest with around 59mm.


To put this in perspective compared to the European rainfall champions:
- **Podgorica, Montenegro:** 1,661mm annually
- **Ljubljana, Slovenia:** 1,368mm annually
- **Aberdeen, Scotland:** 753-866mm annually


So while Aberdeen is certainly a wet city by UK standards (it's known for its "biting winds and driving rain" from the North Sea), it doesn't rank among Europe's wettest cities. It receives roughly half the rainfall of Podgorica and Ljubljana, and is comparable to cities like Brussels (852mm) or Dublin (758mm).


Aberdeen's reputation for being wet likely comes more from the frequency of rainy days (184-207 per year) and the harsh conditions when it does rain, rather than the total amount of precipitation.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

[dirk diggler]

207 days if rain, 156 days of sleet, hailstones and snow.

And 2 days of sunstroke inducing heatwaves in the middle of July*

*sometimes.

[Joe 90]

wetter (moister?) than Manchester but with more character.

No fish around these parts although Hal has been known to hook a carp out of the canal.

[Joe 90]

April and May are the driest months...

Funnily enough...

[armstrong]

Furious that my dad worked on the rigs all his life and never thought to move me to Thailand or something. By the time he started to expat I was too old to move to Singapore.

I could have been a bratty inter kid failing his IB because he spent most of it on Khao San.

Mind you he worked out of Aberdeen for most of it so glad he spared me.

[BLD]

Ungrateful and entitled kunt. That's no way to talk about yer old man.

[armstrong]

Ungrateful and entitled kunt. That's no way to talk about yer old man.

Piss off you fat [at][at][at][at]

[BLD]

I knew there was something a bit "off "about you. What shocking disrespect for the man who spent all that time on oil rigs .away from family to give you the start in life that culminated in you being a tefler. Do you think he thought weeks on a rig in the north Sea was fun? Fucking disgraceful. Y'all get all righteous when you think someone's made insulting family comments..yet you totally disrespect you're father. AND Aberdeen you twerp.

[Edmond]

What shocking disrespect

I'm pretty sure that he isn't actually furious, or, you know, anyway angry about it.

[dirk diggler]

If he’d brought you up in Aberdeen you’d probably be working offshore like the rest of us.

[DrWilly]

Yeah, some of those TEFLrs are allergic to real work.

[dirk diggler]

No underwater ROV Ops this evening, as the Sup has been frogged onto the FPSO with a beauty of a shiner and a closed up right eye. See what the doc on there says.

Suspected that he angered a Nairobi Acid Death Messenger Fly on a handrail and rubbed the resilience onto his face while adjusting his safety goggles, which are built into his hard hat.

If you’re wondering what a Frog/being Frogged means, it’s a more secure version of the Billy Pugh. Instead of standing and holding onto the cargo net for your dear life, you sit down and get buckled in like a roller coaster that does loops.

They in the case of this falling into the water it will self-upright and float. I argued that if the Crain hook doesn’t kill you first, nor the whiplash of being instantly snapped upside down, then it’s finish you off on the way to Dave’s Jones’ Locker. If the sharks don’t get you first.

I’ll take my chances in the Billy Pugh, thank you very much.





That FPSO is a muckle brut to be fair

[dirk diggler]

Not that you get a choice by the way, if it’s a frog it’s a frog, get on with it.

But if there was an option, the Billy Pugh wins.

[Mendip]

^ I've never seen one of those Frogs before. I thought the point of a basket was that you stood outside, hung on to the netting and wouldn't get trapped inside if it all goes wrong? I don't like the look of that Frog thing.

Which FPSO is that?

[dirk diggler]

It’s called PSNM



https://www.modec.com/project/detail/psvm.html

[Mendip]

^ I thought it looked unfamiliar. I worked extensively around the Pazflor and CLOV FPSOs back in the day.

They were also 'muckle bruts' I reckon... whatever that means.


We're back to underwater ditchdigging, 130m down.

Currently in 'bulldozer' mode.



One location finished... off to the next.



It seems that there's an outbreak of some kind of Novovirus on board. People are dropping like flies and being confined to their cabins

I'm a bit loose and have been doing some God-awful smelling farts but nothing worse. I think that almost two decades in Isaan has made my stomach pretty resistant to most illnesses known to man.

I could do with losing some weight but not sure that this is the way to go?

Mind, would a few days binge watching Netflix while sitting on the toilet be so bad? At least I'd get paid for it.

[DrWilly]

Yeah, I’m not sure biotic induced weight loss is all that healthy!

[dirk diggler]

I’ll take the lergy for a 1 man cabin!